Here’s a list of the balance issues that I’ve verified. Average results of multiple tests are below (usually 5+ tests), all tests are with full upgrades and no micro unless noted. I’ve already tested scripting changes to resolve these issues and suggested them to gearbox (I can mod). Below each issue are the results of the suggested scripting changes.

Number 9.2: HMF Range

Suggested changes:
Reduce HMF range to 3750
Hiig ions would be able to kite HMF again. DDs would be able to kite better too.
More details: HMF range at 3750 is a compromise between hw2c/HWR 1.3’s 3500 and HWR 2.0’s 4000. … In testing this was one thing I learned that I either didnt know, or forgot from hw2c: Hiig Ions outrange HMF. In testing, I suggested the range be equalized to prevent infinite kiting. I shoulda thought it through more though. Equal range makes HMF superior to Ions in every way. Missiles can also be micro’d much better than ions. Onces the missiles deploy you can pull HMF, while ions must stay in range for many seconds to deal their damage. Additionally once you’ve got large numbers of ions, they bump into each other and have a hard time initially lining up with their targets.

Number 30: Collector Kamikaze/Stance

Collectors using kamikaze are dealing way less damage than intended due to some typo’s. Additionally its annoying to have to set your collectors to evasive stance to get maybe 0.5% better harvesting.

Suggested changes:
Fix the typos and set collectors default stance to evasive.

Number 31: Death Blast Range

Hiigaran/Vaygr carriers and cruisers have a larger death/scuttle blast range compared to Kushan/Taiidan. This makes fighters/corvettes less relevant in large capital ship battles, as they tend to get taken out by death blasts too easily.

Suggested changes:
Lower the blast range some on Hiigaran/Vaygr carriers and cruisers to balance vs Kushan/Taiidan.

Number 32: Debris slowing down the game

This isn’t a balance issue, but it does impact multiplayer. In long games all the debris from dead capital ships can really slow the game down. Even if you collect the debris, its still not cleared from HWR’s memory:Debries do not disappear while colected

Suggested changes:
Reduce the amount of debris for destroyers and cruisers. Keep the big RU chunks, and remove the small RU chunks that aren’t worth the time to collect anyways.

Resolved Issues

These issues were resolved in the Patch Preview.

Number 1: hw1 scouts are overpowered vs fighters

70 kushan scouts vs 70 hiigaran interceptors = 61 scouts
70 kushan scouts vs 70 kushan interceptors = 54 scouts
This is by far the biggest balance issue right now. Obviously interceptors should be beating scouts here, but its a landslide in the other direction… I did some digging and looks like an oversight gave hw1 scouts double their intended damage vs fighters. I’d highly suggest not using hw1 scouts online until this is resolved.

Number 4: Interceptors are overpowered vs frigates

50 Hiig Interceptors vs 1 Hiig Ion Frig
HWR 1.3: 95 seconds
HWR 2.1: 30 seconds
These are doing as good as pulsars for the cost, and they shouldn’t be. This shuts down the very popular hyper-torp strategy, and marine/infiltrator frigates.

Number 5: Interceptors are underpowered vs modules

50 Hiig Interceptors vs Research mod on Hiig Mothership (Time from first bullet fired)
HWR 1.3: 47 seconds
HWR 2.1: 60 seconds
Not good considering the health of several other modules was already buffed.

Number 9: Vaygr production

Vaygr harvesting is finally on par with hiigaran and vaygr upgrades aren’t sky high anymore. The costs of their carriers may need to go up a bit more to balance production with the other races which have more expensive carriers.

Suggested changes: Implemented
Vaygr carrier cost 1900->2100

Number 9.1
Another small nerf to mass vaygr frigs.

Suggested changes:
Vaygr assault frigate research cost 500->650
650 is how much it cost in hw2c/HWR 1.3. This was reduced last year to help vaygr deal with salvage corvs+GWs. Its no longer needed since ballistics was added and HMF were given a small anti-corvette missile.

Number 11: Underpowered ships vs probes and idle fighters

Missile corvettes deal zero damage to probes (bug). An ion platform takes 195 seconds to kill a probe and a pulsar corvette take 51 seconds to kill a probe. Most ships kill probes very quickly.
Also torpedo frigates kill idle fighters too slowly, it takes 2 torpedo’s just to kill one interceptor.

Suggested changes: Implemented
Find and fix the missile corvette bug. For ion platforms, pulsar corvettes and torpedo frigates: increase penetration vs unarmored ships (fighters and probes). They will all still suck vs moving fighters, but will be able to deal with probes and idle fighters.

Number 17: Vaygr Laser Corvette attack run bug

The vaygr laser corvette attack run is bugged vs certain ships.
28 laser vs 10 hiig resource collectors (upgraded) = They kill the first 2 collectors ok, but then they start doing evasive manuevers and rarely attacking. It takes 400+ seconds to kill them all. When working correctly, they should kill them in under 100 seconds.

This bug probably happens when attacking other ships too, but I haven’t tested.

Number 21 continuous gravity wells

Its a bit too easy to lock down the swarm by continuously building gravity wells and not allowing your opponent to escape. This contributes to the current frigate dominance, and makes swarming look like an under-powered option vs hw1 races. The swarm also takes a lot more damage when sitting idle now.

Suggested changes: Implimented
Reduce hw1 gravity well duration from 45 to 30 seconds. For reference, EMP is 20 seconds with a much smaller area of effect.

Number 21.1:
Assault frig + GW timing will be a full minute faster between #23 and #26. Swarm caught near the edge of GWs is out of range to fire on/damage the GW, and swarm does not get pushed out like in hw1c.

Number 22 hiig shipyard build time

The hiig shipyard currently builds 10 seconds slower than it did in HWR 1.3/hw2c.

Suggested changes: Implimented
Restore it to how it used to be to ensure hiig and vaygr can both get battlecruisers at the same time (9:40 was the fastest time for both races in HWR 1.3 on a 3000ru start). This will also help with hiig destroyers and cruisers feeling under-powered.

Number 23 hw1 gravity well timing

Hw1 gravity well research takes a long time, and delays other important production research (like capital chassis or ion cannons). Hw2 races can build hyperspace inhibitors quicker, and it only ties up one module production line without affecting research or production much.

Suggested changes: Implimented
Reduce the research time for hw1 gravity wells from 71 seconds to 35 (time with one research ship).

Number 24 cloak generators too slow

In hw1c they were faster than destroyers and ion frigs, now they are slower.

Reduce hw1 capital ship chassis research by 28 seconds and increase hw1 ion cannon research by the same amount. This allows for quicker assault frigs whille keeping ion frigate timing the same. Time is with one research ship.

Number 28: hw1 Destroyers Underpriced

hw1 destroyers were originally priced lower than hw2 destroyers at a time when they needed a support frigate to stand a chance. That’s no longer the case.
1 Hiig Destroyer (upgraded) vs 1 Kus Destroyer = even

Suggested changes
hw1 destroyer 1800ru->2500ru (up 800ru, same cost as a support frigate. Still cheaper than 3 hw1 ion frigates at 2700ru. For reference hw2 destroyers are also just a bit cheaper than 3 hw2 ion/hmf frigates.)

Number 101: mushy gravity wells

Gravity wells have their own armour class and every ship does 100% penetration vs them.

Suggested changes: Implimented
Set them to medium armour like other hw1 non-combat units and frigates. This will make other ships treat them consistently for damage calculations. For example: After #4 is implimented, this will make interceptors deal 30% penetration vs gravity wells instead of 100%. Same goes for most other ships that do less than 100% penetration vs medium armour.

Number 102: hw1 motherships/carrier guns not working

They can only shoot at fighters/corvs/probes. Not frigs, etc.

Suggested changes: Implimented
Allow them to shoot at everything like hw2 motherships/carriers can.

Number 103: hw2 motherships/carriers overpowered vs collectors

They have nearly twice the penetration vs collectors than in HWR 1.3. Thats also nearly twice the penetration vs collectors than hw1 races (once #102 is fixed.)

Suggested changes: Implemented
Restore to HWR 1.3 levels.

Closed Issues

These issues have been closed and will not be addressed in the patch preview.

Number 20 salvage corvettes considered underpowered

In hw1c they had a bit more health than multigun corvettes, but a bit less health than heavy corvettes. It should prolly be the same in HWR.

Suggested changes:
Change the health from 1000->1200
Edit: Holding off on this for now per request.

Number 25: Grav Well Bug

When fighters or corvettes get stuck in the hw1 Gravity Well effect, they will continue to spin in place even after the hw1 Gravity Well has moved far out of range.

Suggested changes:
Fix the bug. A work-around would be to prevent the GW from moving while the ability is active.
Edit: Doesn’t look like this is easy to fix and it isn’t a huge deal with the current GW duration.

HW1 Mission 3 Cryo Trays

The cryo trays die three times faster than in hw1c (tested vs 5 assault frigates in each). This mission is very hard for new players if they don’t use salvage corvettes on the assault frigates.Solution
Increase cryo tray health from 18,000 to 50,000.

HW2 Mission 2 Captain Soban

Captain Soban’s weapon damage is far lower in HWR than it was in hw2c. Rather than being a hero ship, its more like a regular marine frigate.Solution
Increase the weapon damage to match hw2c.

Debunked Concerns

Fighter/corvette battles taking too long

Limited testing reveals battles are actually faster for the following matchups. If anyone has noticed a specific match-up taking too long, please comment. I tested a ton of match-ups months ago in patch testing, and generally battles were a bit faster than HWR 1.3.

Hiigaran carriers seem to be too expensive. One of them costs 2800 with no modules, while a HW1 carrier costs 3000 and comes with the ability to produce fighters, corvettes, and frigates, and the ability to hyperspace. Not to mention two production lines which together produce a bit more than a single HW2 production line. On smaller maps, HW1 is able to outproduce Vaygr, so I don’t believe that Vaygr production is too good. However Hiigaran might need reduced carrier price to be able to keep up. Suggested price change from 2800 to 2400.

Destroyers aren’t underpowered. They win cost effectively against anti capital ship frigates. 4 Hiig ion frigs costs 2800, one DD is 2000 (1800 for HW1). However I’m not sure if I can say the same for Battlecruisers.

The one problem I have noticed with the Vaygr is that they are able to focus their production all on one unit. Heavy Missile Frigates are VERY good, not sure if overpowered yet, and with three lines all producing them, HW1 doesn’t really have an answer. Bombers can’t kill them fast enough, and every carrier/MS can only produce one line of ion frigates which build much slower than missile frigates. I haven’t played Hiigaran much so I don’t know if they fare better.

How do I test these? Is there a mission editor of some sort where I can set up scenarios to help with balance?

HW:RM's Future Development Goes Public
With the release of HW:RM 2.1 the process for future patches is going to be MUCH different. In addition, HW:RM Multiplayer is no longer Beta - so this forum will be renamed shortly.
Moving forward patches will be developed in full view of the public. How will that work?
There's now a public build of the upcoming patch accessible via Steam -- In the Properties dialog for HW:RM on Steam, go to the Betas tab, and in the lower box type: ilovehomeworld -…

Not sure of that answers your question as to testing, probably not, and you are probably well aware. Thought I’d just throw it in just in case.

In general there is a lack of diversity in the game now. Played a 45min match on Kharham wreck where both teams only could spam fighters against each other, because stopping production one second would lose you the battle. That was just wrong… Spamwars. Other games are like this too, golden rule is just spam fighters and go in, nothing is quick enough to stop them and the only tactical advantage are numbers and maybe some clicking the right units.

I almost never see corvettes used by any faction. This likely stems from the aforementioned issues, but even the HW2 corvettes can’t hold their own early-mid game when assault frigates come into play.

Assault Frigates miss frigates and HW2 collectors a bit too often considering their size - if damage output is an issue maybe nerf penetration slightly while buffing accuracy to make it a bit less annoying.

HW2 DDs lose out to HW1 Frigates. Maybe not cost wise, but certainly factoring in build times and HW1’s double production lines. They seem about 10% weaker than they should be.

HW1 DDs seem to be stronger than HW2 - not sure if it is just bias but frontal ions seem to be more effective than broadside guns/missiles. They are less vulnerable to DFFs and Def. Fighters as well.

GWGs should take a little longer to build - another 10-15 seconds would leave enough time between expiry and production to retreat or deal some damage. Currently, there is only 5-10 seconds of downtime when 1 line is building GWs.

Resource controllers seem to be terrible at docking collectors - I need about 1 for every 3 collectors it seems, while refineries are good for 8.

Sphere formation is borked - the fighters don’t face their target and park about 3 feet from the hull.

One thing I noticed is that Defenders seem over-nerfed and Defense Fighters don’t seem useful except when you’re already unit capped and just have nothing else to make.
Defenders don’t even seem to be that good against Interceptors.

Ion Frigates are only good against frigates, destroyers, and BCs.
On the other hand, Destroyers do decent against Corvettes as well as those other things. Maybe they didn’t in 1.3, but I’ve been seeing my Hiig Destroyer take out Corvettes somewhat effectively. Not as good as torps, but decent.
So many things are changed with balance, that what beats what being different from how it was before doesn’t mean much when those might not be better against other things.

And what if you mix in 2 support frigates or repair collectors on each side? It’s easier to keep the Destroyer alive since it’s one larger HP pool.

Ion frigates were simply not good enough in vanilla/1.3 considering their limited use, even though you get them earlier.
If there is an issue here, it may be with the build time of Ion Frigates being too short, but not cost to cost.

I’ve experienced this issue when using Taiidan interceptors and bombers against Vaygr Heavy Missile frigates and against a Hiigaran destroyer. If the ship moves at all the fighters won’t face the target and they form a sphere very close to the target at all times regardless of whether or not it is moving. The fighters get so close that the exploding frigate will either kill them or take away most of their health. And the frigate’s explosion is tiny.

Have you checked HW1 Ion Frigates vs HW2 DDs, both stock and upgraded? It is possible that the balance issue is temporary and caused by either an upgrade gap or build times. It is also possible that Hig DDs might be fighting without the torpedo upgrade for awhile due to resource constraints.

There could also be some ballistics issues - since the Hig DD uses slow-ish kinetics move-attacking ions might be able to dodge some fire while the instant point-shoot of HW1 DDs and Ion Frigates maintains accuracy. Ion frigates do have a very narrow forward cross-section.

One more thing - torpedoes self-destruct when the target is destroyed instead of re-targeting. Is this intended?

One thing I noticed is that Defenders seem over-nerfed and Defense Fighters don’t seem useful except when you’re already unit capped and just have nothing else to make.Defenders don’t even seem to be that good against Interceptors.

I did some tests with them, they are still good, just not super good anymore, a few points need to be addressed about them.
they are the best at fighter vs fighter, they will win against pretty much any other fighter in the same number, even cloaked fighters (super interceptors) will lose against them.
they are the quickest to build auxiliary fighter, compared with cloaked and defense fighters.
you should not build them alone, they need to be built along with other fighters, interceptors are …

About defense fighters I kinda agree, just have no idea how to make them better.

What does the defense field do? If I put a defense fighter in a formation with interceptors, will it make that formation immune/resistant to attacks from enemy interceptors? They could potentially be amazing, but they will require a lot of micromanagement.

It works like the defense field frigate, but it blocks way less bullets of course, it would be op to block so many bullets with the cost of a fighter.
They are kinda very very hard to balance if you ask me.

I found a minor visual glitch. @BitVenom check out what happens when some HW1 ships get boarded and captured. They receive the change in colours reflecting their new owner, except for on their turrets, which retain their original paint job. I saw this occur on the Taiidan and Kushan destroyers, and the Kushan Heavy Cruiser. If this logic follows, the Kushan assault frigate’s turrets will also be glitched like this.

Nothing major, it just looks a bit ridiculous at times. I’m assuming because I didn’t notice it before that is is related to the recent updates.